Baseball: Regaining Momentum

Stingers Wrap Up Weekend Series Versus Carleton by Winning Three of Four Games

It’s been a bit of a rollercoaster weekend for the Concordia Stingers baseball team, which managed to win three of four games versus the Carleton Ravens in a home-and-home series doubleheader.
Archive Shaun Michaud

It’s been a bit of a rollercoaster weekend for the Concordia Stingers baseball team, which managed to win three of four games versus the Carleton Ravens in a home-and-home series doubleheader.

The Stingers began the weekend on the road, playing the Saturday doubleheader in Ottawa. They won the first game 7-4, but the second game ended in a rather unorthodox manner. Despite leading a close ball game 3-2 after six innings, the Stingers were forced to postpone the last inning to noon on Sunday at Trudeau Park in Côte-St-Luc due to the time restrictions of the team bus driver.

It would prove to make no dramatic difference on Sunday. The Stingers would add an insurance run in the top of the 7th inning, and the now veteran Jonathan Raftus would come in to close out the game with relative ease and winning the second ball game of their series 4-2, continuing the Stingers’ early undefeated start to the year.

Unfortunately for Concordia, Raftus’ performance did not translate to the early innings of their third game as he allowed six runs in one inning of play.

“[Carleton] were getting some good at-bats and fighting off some good pitches and finding ways to get on base,” Raftus said. “After that I just couldn’t find a way to get out of the inning.”

The Stingers brought in Derik Szemenyei, who didn’t fare much better. Szemenyei gave up nine runs, including three home runs, to add insult to injury. Flashes of the potent Stinger offense would not matter as the Ravens manhandled the Stingers 15-7.

The Stingers were fortunately quick to forget about that loss to the Ravens, faring much better both on the mound and defensively in the final match of their series, winning 7-3.

“Even if we played bad the first game, I’m just going to go out there and throw strikes,” pitcher Shane Mullen said after pitching seven innings and giving up just three runs. “It helps a lot when the team is on, I don’t have to throw as many pitches and I can go longer into the game.

“Obviously [the first game] was a struggle for me but I wanted to come back strong in the second and help my team win.” Raftus said. He got on base four times in the game including a double down the right field line.

Despite improving to a 5-1 record after the win, manager Howie Schwartz made it clear that there’s still room to improve.

“It’s going to be OK by the end of the season. It’s just going to take a little time to get there,” Schwartz said. “These guys were doing their job and working hard at it and it just wasn’t happening” he explains. “I don’t shit on anybody for not getting the job done, I shit on them for not wanting to do the job.”

Schwartz and the coaching staff are hoping their philosophy proves effective and continue to improve. The Stingers play their next game against McGill on Wednesday evening at 7:30pm.